Englewood resident Rebecca Citron, left — former head of Jewish Family Services of Bergen County, part-time resident of Netanya, and mission co-chair — with Colonel Yehudit Grisaro, one of the highest-ranking women in the IDF.
Women — and, on our mission, this meant women attorneys, women therapists, women communal workers, women raising children, women teachers, women insurance agents, and a host of other women at work — bring a unique perspective to situations involving the real lives of other people. That sensibility notwithstanding, or perhaps because of it, the trip included visits with women, and men, facing a variety of social and political challenges.
The group gathered for a Tu B'Shevat seder in the Yemin Moshe home of Joseph Silver, whose sister, Debbie Silver, is a "Lion of Judah" (donor of at least $5,000 to the annual UJA campaign). According to Tel Aviv "Lion" Doreen Gainsford, there are 80 Lions in Israel, five of whom joined the New Jersey women for an evening of fruit, songs, and Tu B'Shevat readings. From left, Israel Lion Ruth Salomy with New Jersey women Barbara Smolin, Susan Silver, and Ava Silverstein.
Mission members had numerous opportunities to meet and talk with individual Israelis.
One afternoon was reserved solely for inter-communal socializing, as UJA women were dispersed throughout Nahariya to enjoy the home hospitality of local residents.
A sign hanging in front of the Neve Yosef Community Center in Haifa cites UJA-NNJ as a major benefactor. The center has received $70,000 a year from the UJA-NNJ and its precursor, the UJA Federation of Bergen County and North Hudson, for the past 15 years, according to Heimler. The federation is also helping to renovate and expand the facility, and Teaneck residents Eva and Leo Gans are raising funds for the project.
What does it mean that the Port of New York and New Jersey will be in the hands of Dubai?
Last week, a $6.8 billion deal put the operation and control of the Port of New York and New Jersey in the control of Dubai Ports World, a firm in the United Arab Emirates owned by the government of Dubai.
Now, says N.J. Governor Jon Corzine, New Jersey is suing the Bush administration to block the deal.
For 18 years, until May, I commuted to work. In the morning, I boarded the train in Fair Lawn, transferred to the PATH in Hoboken, and exited at the '3rd Street station in Manhattan. In the evening, I did the same trip, in the reverse direction. I did this every day, in all kinds of weather, despite 9/11 (I went in on 9/1'), and even on bad hair days.
This year, it won't be the rabbi teaching pre-Passover classes at Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood. Instead, congregants will teach each other.
I've been watching a lot of action/adventure movies lately ("Lord of the Rings," "Harry Potter," etc.) and have become as much of an adrenaline addict as a middle-aged woman can be. So fired up, in fact, that I finally went out and bought a DVD player so that I can better savor the nifty special effects.
The decision was overdue, but difficult nonetheless.
On Jan. '', in lieu of winter break, 14 girls from area high schools set out for a five-day trip to the Gulf Coast to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. They knew the outlines of their mission, but they didn't know each other — nor the tremendous effect the trip would have on their lives.
"They met with a social worker the night before," said Adir Posy, a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University, who, together with his wife, Dr. Hindi Posy, planned and led the trip. The Posys are one of two couples retained by the Englewood-based Community Jewish Enhancement Program, housed at Cong. Ahavath Torah.
RIVER EDGE – On Feb. 10, local Jewish Community Relations Council Israel advocates and members of the press will gather at a breakfast at the offices of UJA of Northern New Jersey here to hear two mothers — one Arab and one Israeli — "offer common-sense ideas that can help Israelis and Palestinians live in peace," says Joy Kurland, JCRC director.
The "Moms for Peace" program, co-sponsored with the Washington-based Israel Project, is not the first venture linking the two organizations. In June '004, the local JCRC sent lay and professional representatives to the Israel Project's "Ultimate Training Seminar for Pro-Israel Advocates."
"The program was created to teach participants how to enhance the image of Israel in the media," says Kurland, who credits Fort Lee resident Avi Naiman, co-chair of UJA-NNJ's Partnership '000 initiative, with spearheading the local JCRC's Israel Media Outreach Committee after attending the Washington program.
The relationship has spawned another project, says Kurland, who says the JCRC is starting up an Israel Speakers Bureau that will send Israel advocates to non-Jewish venues such as churches, among other places.
"Moms for Peace" will visit six U.S. cities in February, says Kurland, who notes that the local is not designed for the general public but as a "press conference, so these mothers can get their message out to the public." (Some seats at the breakfast will be available to members of the community, but space is limited.) The campaign also includes a series of 30-second television ads that will air in the cities being visited on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News.
"Despite new Palestinian leadership, more than 300 schools in Palestinian areas are named after suicide bombers," says a press release issued in advance of the event, which points out that Palestinian schoolchildren learn "songs … about destroying Israel and [study] textbooks that deny Israel's existence." They also watch "children's cartoons that glorify and encourage them to become suicide bombers."
"The two mothers talk about the need to stop teaching a culture of hate," says Kurland. "Their story is truly compelling, and I've heard that they're incredible."
Nonie Darwish, who grew up in Gaza, was encouraged to avenge the death of her father, who was hailed as a martyr for carrying out violent operations against Israelis. Miri Eisen recently completed her service as a colonel in the Israel Defense Forces. Both have three children and both want Palestinian youth to learn "to become doctors, farmers, businesspeople, and teachers, not suicide bombers," according to program organizers.
For more information about The Israel Project, visit http://www.TheIsraelProject.org. For more information about the "Moms for Peace" breakfast, call Ruth Siev, JCRC project coordinator, ('01) 488-6800, ext. ''1.
Even as a young man, David Reinwald, student cantor at Temple Beth-El in Jersey City, was drawn to the music of the Holocaust. For his bachelor's degree, he researched the classical music of Terezin. He was particularly intrigued by the Czech children's opera, "Brundibar," by Hans Kr?sa, performed dozens of times by children in that camp. According to Reinwald — who has been with Beth-El for four years and is now preparing for his senior recital on Feb. 8 at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion School of Sacred Music — a large amount of research has already been done in this area. "I wanted to find a new approach," he says. "I came upon cabaret music from the ghettos and it spoke to me." While a few recordings exist, he says, the music was preserved mainly through survivors who had copies of the written music or through the efforts of researchers, "who 'pulled' the music from survivors." The cantor is struck by the challenges of performing this music during the Holocaust. He points out that cabaret is traditionally "very rebellious, trying to comment on politics through satire. I wanted to find out how they could do this" in those terrible times, he says. "They had to walk a fine line," he notes, explaining that the lyrics often included veiled criticisms of ghetto leaders. "A lot of people were involved," he says, noting that besides composers and singers, there were people working "behind the scenes, creating artwork for scenery." The performers were men and women, from the caf?s of Warsaw — until the ghetto was closed off — to the streets of Lodz, where musicians roamed, often looking to be paid for their songs. "They were gifted poets who could change their lyrics constantly," says Reinwald. In his recital, Reinwald will recreate the music uncovered by other researchers, interspersing it with monologues from primary documents. Some songs will be accompanied by piano, guitar, or viola, and some will be ? capella. "Every song was different," he says. The music he will explore derives mainly from the years 1939-44 and hails primarily from Eastern Europe. "One song from Vilna, called 'Friling' (spring), written on top of a tango melody, emphasizes the heartbeat of the singer," says Reinwald. "It talks about going home, and about a love that is missing. The music is taking listeners back to another time." Reinwald says that current research on Holocaust cabaret "is scattered. No one has pulled it together or bridged the gaps." He is hopeful his project will change that. The '6-year-old cantor, who plans to bring a "scaled down" version of his recital to his Jersey City synagogue in the near future, points to a sad irony in some of the music. Noting that the circumstances of the Holocaust threw together Jews from eastern and western Europe, who often didn't get along, he says some songs display more of an "internal anti-Semitism" than complaints about the Nazis.
